9 replies to this topic

[Danzo]

I love playing a S/D elementalist, it just feels right to me.
However, I am also a huge fan of WvW and I refuse to resort to a staff because some people say it happens to be best for WvW.
Here is my request.. I Need your help on making a tough/vit geared S/D elementalist for WvW purposes.. Can it be done?
When it comes to creating builds I'm horrible.. I really hope someone can help me create a good Tough/vit gear based S/D build for me.
This is what I have at the moment:

Full Power/Tough/Vit Armor with 6/6 Superior rune of strength
Full Power/Tough/Vit Accessories with crest of the soldier inside the accessories
Power/Tough/Vit Scepter with Superior sigil of Fire
Power/Tough/Vit Dagger with Superior Sigil of Battle

Traits & Utility's
http://gw2skills.net...HEwQCiCVUeEDN1A

This is what I have right now.
Is it wrong? can it work? am I an idiot for not having any crit chance?
Please help me!!

Thank you

[Therion]

Your build and gear won't matter, staff is best in WvW because of the range and the AoE's, and no stat or spec setup will make up for scepter having a shorter range and less effective AoE damage.

[Dominox]

Staff is only better if you are a mindless zergling - otherwise S/D rocks when in the right hands.

[Reisa]

Well, you have to ask yourself what you want to do.  If you're assaulting a hardened target against a team (ie, not PvDoor), you'll want to use staff.

I'll assume that you're building for small groups or roaming.

First, your build.  The fire tree is largle considered one of our worst trees.  Really, I can't see a justification for going more than ten points in there, unless running a gimmicky build like conjures.  Really, the only viable build we have is something kinda tanky, so that means investing heavily in Earth and/or Water.  Nearly every ele has to invest at least ten points into Arcane, otherwise our attunements have an awful recharge rate.

Frankly, I'd say your biggest problem is that you're building as a glass cannon and you don't have enough defenses to compensate.  A lot of other classes can go glass cannon in WvW (such as Thief and Mesmer) but that's because they have ways to make up for it (such as the fact that the two guys working on class balance seem to main some combination of Thief, Mesmer, and Guardian).  Elementalists cannot go glass cannon in WvW and hope to succeed.  Heck, if you want to go glass, best advice is to reroll the class.

Basically, you'll want to be quite tanky to survive and you'll want to outlast your enemy.  Because, frankly, ele's suck right now.  We have one or two builds that have maybe three-quarters the effectiveness as a top tier class and they're all some variation of the same general line of thinking.

So, yes, I'd say drop 20 points out of fire and dump them in water, change your fire trait to the one that gives you might when you cast cantrips, remove the arcane skills from your bar (or keep wave since it's one of our few remaining blast finishers) and get maybe something to help with defense like armor of the earth or lightning flash or cleansing fire or something.  I'd change out the air trait to Bolt to the Heart or whatever.  I'd definitely get Elemental Attunement in Arcane as well, since it'll synergize well in the water tree.

Personally, I run a 10/10/0/30/20 build with full cantrips and it works pretty well.  Of course, that's daggers.

Remember, you can't be delusional as an ele.  You will get killed.  Often.  You will put out less damage than everyone else while putting in more effort.  You just have to work within the system (like Dragon's Tooth not being a blast finisher anymore).

[Therion]

Dominox, on 30 November 2012 - 07:26 PM, said:

Staff is only better if you are a mindless zergling - otherwise S/D rocks when in the right hands.

S/D will never match the AoE potential of staff, which makes it an inferior choice in the large scale fights of which WvW primarily consists of. I don't like it either, but that's just the reality right now.

[nemec]

Currently windborne dagger don't work and even when devs will correct the bug it will work when you use dagger in main hand.

[lmaonade]

Therion, on 01 December 2012 - 02:34 AM, said:

S/D will never match the AoE potential of staff, which makes it an inferior choice in the large scale fights of which WvW primarily consists of. I don't like it either, but that's just the reality right now.

there are plenty of small skirmishes around, S/D is just fine (relative to the class at least) when you stick to your niche, when I WvW I go with a small team with my guild or solo, zergs are stupid and kill my fps.

S/D is a top notch skirmish weapon set if you know how to use it correctly

Edit: and yes power tree sucks, I do not recommend that you take more than 10 points in it

Crit chance is definitely needed, HOWEVER, you're taking 30 points in arcane, so you'd have fury on attunement and max recharge rate, this + master maintenance oil that you can buy will total you to around 40-45% crit chance even if you still only have 10 points in air without any extra precision in gear.

I also recommend you not take arcane skills, though they are nice (wave especially), as an ele who will get focused, your utilities will  need to be focused on survival, mist form is great, but it's not enough, 3 seconds every 75 seconds is just too little. Also, I recommend you change "Elemental Surge" to "Evasive Arcana" no matter if you continue taking arcane skills or not, the effects on it (especially for earth and water) are just too good not to have.

Edited by lmaonade, 10 December 2012 - 10:17 AM.

[kekuso]

Don't really wanna start a new topic for this, but can anyone list the advantages scepter/dagger has over dagger/dagger in WvW?  My stats right now are a mixture of cond. dmg/vitality/healing power/toughness.

My playstyle with D/D has been hit and run, such as flanking zergs and blowing them up from behind (ha) with the usual ride the lightning, updraft, fire 3, fire 4, fire 5, earth 4, earth 5, etc.  I tried using S/D for a little while to see if the range helped with survivability, but it didn't really make a difference.  I'd much rather just do as much damage as possible and then get the hell out of there.

I used to use staff a lot, but nowadays I just ignore zerg vs zerg stalemates and try to either flank them with D/D or just find action somewhere else...I know staff is invaluable for keep defense, but it's just so lackluster compared to D/D...maybe it's the intimidation factor of being up in your enemy's face as compared to just casting puny fireballs from a distance.

I also found a new addiction to auras and aura sharing
Here's my build if it helps: http://gw2skills.net...QRxM5A;TIAg2CrA

Edited by kekuso, 11 December 2012 - 08:44 PM.

[lmaonade]

kekuso, on 11 December 2012 - 08:22 PM, said:

Don't really wanna start a new topic for this, but can anyone list the advantages scepter/dagger has over dagger/dagger in WvW?  My stats right now are a mixture of cond. dmg/vitality/healing power/toughness.

My playstyle with D/D has been hit and run, such as flanking zergs and blowing them up from behind (ha) with the usual ride the lightning, updraft, fire 3, fire 4, fire 5, earth 4, earth 5, etc.  I tried using S/D for a little while to see if the range helped with survivability, but it didn't really make a difference.  I'd much rather just do as much damage as possible and then get the hell out of there.

I used to use staff a lot, but nowadays I just ignore zerg vs zerg stalemates and try to either flank them with D/D or just find action somewhere else...I know staff is invaluable for keep defense, but it's just so lackluster compared to D/D...maybe it's the intimidation factor of being up in your enemy's face as compared to just casting puny fireballs from a distance.

I also found a new addiction to auras and aura sharing
Here's my build if it helps: http://gw2skills.net...QRxM5A;TIAg2CrA

S/D is more about control and is more useful in controlled skirmishes rather than all out zerg busting or 1 vs 1's

S/D's damage is more over time than D/D, the fire 1 and the air 1 are examples, effects that deal damage over a long period of time (you have to stack the burning on fire 1). Earth provides extra defense and control (less damage than D/D) with the rock barrier and dust devil, as blind is something that D/D doesn't directly have. and Air also has a short CD small nuke (that can be used during channels), and a short CD blind as well. Drake's tooth and phoenix are wonderful spells, just hard to land, but they hit really hard though

overall the S/D is less bursty than D/D, but can match the damage over a set interval of time

[Therion]

Quote

Drake's tooth and phoenix are wonderful spells, just hard to land, but they hit really hard though

DT isn't even worth casting most of the time, imo. It is possibly 'the' easiest spell to dodge in the entire game, to the point where there's no excuse for getting hit by it, which neutralizes a lot of S/D's theoretical damage output. Phoenix isn't much better either.